We met with old friends for lunch, toured around the city for a bit, then headed out to the beauty of beauties, Taroko Gorge in Taroko National Park. We got in late, went for a wee jaunt in the bushes, dined and crashed sort of early. The next day we slept in...a nice cold snap has hit and it was ever so comfortable to be chilled and snug in bed with nice thick blankets! Back through the gorge to the city, some grocery shopping (things we cant get in our village or the nearest city) and then on our way back to the train station.....this:
To whom I asked:
"How old is our planet"
"I don't know! I know god made it good for us"
"Which god? There are so many!"
So, a man in this state of dedication to a belief was unable to give reasons as to why he believed....hmm.....that takes faith. Oh yeah..... . To walk around a city in full garnishings of a wardrobe, with a retrofitted extrenal frame backapck rigged with a speaker and portable power blasting religious music, chanting and delivering godly tomes above the hum of the city life takes effort, planning and a dire cause. But to do so without any rational reason?
Faith sounds more like ignorance, with spare time on your hands.
And in other news...we had our baby! A long time ago we started to take care of a crysalis that was given to us by one of the teachers arond here. He is a big reaon that there are butterfly conservation areas in this part of Taiwan, and his knowledge of nature - from butterflies to medicinal plants to berries to use as soap to the history of everything on this island - is profound. Every day I am at that school (once a week) it is like a day long nature course - I just walk around the campus with him and ask questions and he tells stories and explains. Its fascinating. so, when he saw how interested I was in the butterfly diversity of Taiwan he offered to give Crystal and I one (a crysalis) to take care of. This was sometime in November and....it just broke free and here it is!
...and here is a cute spider that was hanging around our place in the mountains this weekend. Didnt seem to mind us hanging around...I hope it wasnt waiting for that perfect moment to attack!!
